ABSTRACT
At first glance, the developmental perspective that has been advanced in this book affords little reason for optimism about clinical applications of the Rorschach with young children. It highlights the erratic, changing ways in which preschoolers approach the test, the marked qualitative differences in how the Rorschach is taken at each stage of its mastery, and the diverse strategies examiners have adopted to cope with such behavior. It also calls attention to the perseverative and confabulatory responses characteristic of early Rorschach performance and the extent to which these protocols are less rich and quite different from those produced in the last stage. Given these facts, it is to be expected that (1) there will not be a consensus among authorities about appropriate techniques for testing young children; (2) many will be skeptical about whether conditions presupposed by standard interpretations of the Rorschach are met when it is used; (3) individual examiners will often be unsure about whether particular children have taken the test in ways that meet their own criteria for valid testing; (4) even advocates of preschool Rorschachs will acknowledge that protocols of these subjects are “less revealing” than those of older ones (Ames et al., 1974, p. 27); and (5) doubts will be present about whether the same processes underlie the Rorschach responses of young children and adults and about whether scores can be interpreted in the same way with each group (Bohm, 1958). In short, our model provides a theoretical basis for accounting for why controversy and uncertainty surround the use of the Rorschach with this age group.
